The divine qualities of man are but the slightest hints, the faintest intimations, of the attributes of God.

HENRY WARD BEECHER, Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit

Sin is absence of God. Nothing more, nothing less.

SIMON MAWER, The Gospel of Judas

I have found God, but he is insufficient.

HENRY MILLER, Tropic of Cancer

God is here below the most popular of all beings.... In the open fields, resting upon his implement of toil, the laborer lifts up his eyes towards heaven, and he names God to his children by an impulse as simple as his own soul. The poor call upon him, the dying invoke his name, the wicked fear him, the good bless him, kings give him their crowns to wear, armies place him at the head of their battalions, victory renders thanksgiving to him, defeat seeks help from him, nations arm themselves with him against their tyrants; there is neither place, nor time, nor circumstance, nor sentiment, in which God does not appear and is not named. Even love itself, so sure of its own charm, so confident in its own immortality, dares not to ignore him, and comes before his altars to beg from him the confirmation of the promises to which it has so often sworn.

People ... have tried to evoke God or devil to justify them in what their glands insisted upon.

WILLIAM FAULKNER, Absalom, Absalom!

God is himself a vast medicine for man. It is the heart of God that carries restoration, inspiration, aspiration, and final victory.

HENRY WARD BEECHER, Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit

God Himself is simple, and employs simple men to shape the world.

JOHN UPDIKE, Terrorist

God created man and He created the world for him to live in and I reckon He created the kind of world He would have wanted to live in if He had been a man--the ground to walk on, the big woods, the trees and the water, and the game to live in it. And maybe He didn't put the desire to hunt and kill game in man but I reckon He knew it was going to be there, that man was going to teach it to himself, since he wasn't quite God himself yet.

WILLIAM FAULKNER, Go Down, Moses

This letter has become a maze, and I a dog in the maze, scurrying up and down the branches and tunnels, scratching and whining at the same old places, tiring, tired. Why do I not call for help, call to God? Because God cannot help me. God is looking for me but he cannot reach me. God is another dog in another maze. I smell God and God smells me. I am the bitch in her time, God the male. God smells me, he can think of nothing else but finding me and taking me. Up and down the branches he bounds, scratching at the mesh. But he is lost as I am lost.

J. M. COETZEE, Age of Iron

I found it better for my soul to be humble before the mysteries o' God's dealings, and not be making a clatter about what I could never understand.

GEORGE ELIOT, Adam Bede

The God of the Old Testament did not distance Himself from His chosen people; He participated in their struggles and made Israel's enemies His own. Israel's own transgressions grieved Him and incited Him to a terrible wrath. Ours is no aloof Lord--no Buddha beyond it all or Zeus making light of mortal travail. Among the world religions Christianity is unique in presenting a suffering God, a God who took human suffering upon Himself and in His agony gave birth to mankind's salvation.

JOHN UPDIKE, In the Beauty of the Lilies

God gives as the wheat gives: we sow one grain, and reap a hundred.

HENRY WARD BEECHER, Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit

God has set his intentions in the flowers, in the dawn, in the spring--it is his will that we should love.

VICTOR HUGO, Toilers of the Sea

Though cares and sorrows e'er must come,

Though heart be rent,

I know that God will give me strength,

When mine is spent.

ARDELIA COTTON BARTON, "The Peace That Passeth Understanding"

You are as close to God in your own sitting room as in the basilica; but the basilica has worth if it strengthens your faith.

SIMON MAWER, The Gospel of Judas

Cast all your cares on God; that anchor holds.

ALFRED TENNYSON, Enoch Arden

On all things created remaineth the half-effaced signature of God,

Somewhat of fair and good, though blotted by the finger of corruption.

MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER, Proverbial Philosophy

When God makes his presence felt through us, we are like the burning bush: Moses never took any heed what sort of bush it was--he only saw the brightness of the lord.

GEORGE ELIOT, Adam Bede

God is a wider consciousness than we are, a pure intelligence, spiritual life and actuality. He is neither one nor many, neither man nor spirit. Such predicates belong only to finite beings.

God's nature is medicinal to ours. There are no troubles which befall our suffering hearts, for which there is not in God a remedy, if only we rise to receive it.

HENRY WARD BEECHER, Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit

They that deny a God destroy man's nobility, for certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body; and if he be not of kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature.

FRANCIS BACON, Essays

He who in God lives, liveth evermore.

DINAH CRAIK, "Living: After a Death"

Man creates both his god and his devil in his own image. His god is himself at his best, and his devil himself at his worst.

ELBERT HUBBARD, The American Bible

The people who related to God best--Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah--treated him with startling familiarity. They talked to God as if he were sitting in a chair beside them, as one might talk to a counselor, a boss, a parent, or a lover. They treated him like a person.

PHILIP YANCEY, Disappointment With God

He who trusts in the word of God knows that he will find nothing in the material universe but the will of God.

E. H. CHAPIN, Living Words

The Divine Being brings comfort and consolation to men. He is a God for men that are weak, and want to be strong; for men that are impure, and want to be pure; for men that are unjust, and want to be just; for men that are unloving, and want to be loving; for men that aspire to all the greatness and glory of which the soul is capable.

HENRY WARD BEECHER, Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit

I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY, History of Woman Suffrage

Delight is the secret. Learn of pure delight and thou shalt learn of God.

SRI AUROBINDO, Thoughts and Glimpses

If you and I have not seen God, we cannot bear witness to God.

LYMAN ABBOTT, Problems of Life: Selections from the Writings of Rev. Lyman Abbott

I don't want my kids growing up with the image of God that I had -- Plato's white grandfatherly god -- because that god is not a very good father. When it comes down to it, you can't trust him with your kids.

WM. PAUL YOUNG, "The Love Shack", Christianity Today, Mar. 4, 2013

I was brought up to believe that the Christian God wasn't a scared and compromising public servant, but the creator of the whole merciless truth, and I reckon that training spoiled me -- I actually took my teachers seriously!

SINCLAIR LEWIS, Elmer Gantry

Except for a God who sits down after the universe begins, all other Gods conflict with the assumptions of science.

ALAN LIGHTMAN, "Does God exist?", Salon, October 2, 2011

As long as we have a master in heaven, we will be slaves on earth.

MIKHAIL BAKUNIN, Man, Society and Freedom

There are many men, and a large number, who, though they do not wish to be rid of God, do not very much care to have him.

LYMAN ABBOTT, Seeking After God

God is a dream, a hope, a woman, an ironist, a father, a city, a house of many rooms, a watchmaker who left his prize chronometer in the desert, someone who loves you -- even, perhaps, against all evidence, a celestial being whose only interest is to make sure your football team, army, business, or marriage thrives, prospers, and triumphs over all opposition.